WHO: The deadliest Ebola outbreak in history will take $430 million to contain

The health organization is calling for "a massively scaled and coordinated international response"

Published August 25, 2014 2:26PM (EDT)

                                        (<a href='url to photographer'>Festa</a> via <a href='http://www.shutterstock.com/'>Shutterstock</a>)
(Festa via Shutterstock)

What will it take to stop the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history? Nearly half a billion dollars in contributions, according to a draft World Health Organization document obtained by Bloomberg News.

The plan is to stop the increase in new Ebola cases within two months, and put an end to all transmissions in six to nine months.  It calls for $430 million in contributions from "domestic and international governments, development banks, the private sector and in-kind contributions," Bloomberg reports. More than half of that money will go toward supporting health centers responsible for treating and isolating patients.

According to the document, the epidemic “continues to evolve in alarming ways, with the severely affected countries, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, struggling to control the escalating outbreak against a backdrop of severely compromised health systems, significant deficits in capacity, and rampant fear." It continues: “Clearly a massively scaled and coordinated international response is needed to support affected and at-risk countries.”

The details may be subject to change before the final document is officially released, possibly by the end of this week.


By Lindsay Abrams

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